Salt Master Performance Testing – SaltStack Support

minionswarm.py is a utility that can be used to spin up any number of minions to test master performance. At current, it must be run on a master+minion to allow for auto-key-creation/acceptance.

minionswarm.py is a useful tool to test specific functions against a number of minions and verify what load is produced on the master. Functionality is limited as the filesystem is jailed only for minion configuration things. All filesystem operations occur on the host minion. Expect to consume more RAM than CPU. An example systems RAM usage:

RAM used prior to minion swarm: 531 MB
RAM used after 10 minion swarm: 1700 MB
RAM used after 30 minion swarm: 2600 MB
RAM used after 50 minion swarm: 3500 MB

Here is an example command to startup 30 minions (-m 30) based on the O/S of the master/minion running minionswarm.py, running as root (-u root) and connect to the specific master (--master 192.168.123.26):

 python minionswarm.py -m 30 --master 192.168.123.26 -u root

Options Include:

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -m MINIONS, --minions=MINIONS
                        The number of minions to make
  -M                    Run a local master and tell the minions to connect to
                        it
  --master=MASTER       The location of the salt master that this swarm will
                        serve
  -n NAME, --name=NAME  Give the minions an alternative id prefix, this is
                        used when minions from many systems are being
                        aggregated onto a single master
  --rand-os             Each Minion claims a different os grain
  --rand-ver            Each Minion claims a different version grain
  --rand-machine-id     Each Minion claims a different machine id grain
  --rand-uuid           Each Minion claims a different UUID grain
  -k KEEP, --keep-modules=KEEP
                        A comma delimited list of modules to enable
  -f, --foreground      Run the minions with debug output of the swarm going
                        to the terminal
  --temp-dir=TEMP_DIR   Place temporary files/directories here
  --no-clean            Don't cleanup temporary files/directories
  --root-dir=ROOT_DIR   Override the minion root_dir config
  --transport=TRANSPORT
                        Declare which transport to use, default is zeromq
  --start-delay=START_DELAY
                        Seconds to wait between minion starts
  -c CONFIG_DIR, --config-dir=CONFIG_DIR
                        Pass in a configuration directory containing base
                        configuration.
  -u USER, --user=USER

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